Compassionate

August 12

August 12

In the letter attributed to him, the impetuous apostle makes a statement that reveals the extent to which his own thinking—his own spirit—has turned around through the years that he was privileged to walk the dusty roads of Palestine with the Lord Jesus Christ and to behold His risen glory.

Peter’s innate character traits caused him to be highly perceptive, as when he declared to Jesus, “…Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God” John 6:69. But he was also the one who took the sword to Malchus’s ear in the garden across the Brook Cedron in John 18:1-10.

Because he was so much like us—the best and worst of intentions and actions rolled into one frail tabernacle of flesh—his journey to spiritual maturity and his advice to us on how to attain it is significant. In I Peter 3:8 and 9, he says, “Be compassionate and humble, not repaying evil for evil or insult for insult but repaying evil with good.”

This reiterates Christ’s own admonition that we turn the other cheek to those who smite us (Matthew 5:39) and evidences the transformed thinking that Peter had after seeing the risen Lord. Perhaps the most striking word in the passage is ‘compassionate,’ for it requires the heart of Jesus to feel that tender emotion toward one who is our persecutor. Only HE can thus change our hearts.